


Etched Glass

by shulkie



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1910's Russia, Angst, Frottage, M/M, Selkie AU, Smut, ambiguous major character death but i put the tag there anyway to be safe, jewish!viktor, minor character death (yuri's grandfather)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8970271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shulkie/pseuds/shulkie
Summary: Viktor is a glassmaker for Yakov's time piece shop. On his free days he skates on the frozen shores outside their village. After he saves an injured seal, a mysterious and handsome stranger appears on the shore and follows him home, but Viktor can't persuade him to stay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [perksofbeingawaifu](http://perksofbeingawaifu.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> I set this is 1910's South Russia when pogroms, attacks on Jewish towns and neighborhoods, would occur. I know selkies are typically an Irish/Scottish myth, but I think I stayed pretty true to the original themes, I just shifted the setting. 
> 
> \--
> 
> TW: though not explicit in the fic, pogroms are antisemitic. minor character death (Yuri's grandfather gets the flu, it's not lingered on) and the ending is ambiguous as to if the major character died. If you have questions please message me on tumblr.

It wasn’t that Viktor was lazy, it was just that every once in a while he liked to sneak away from Yakov’s shop and strap on a pair of skates. Years ago the lake had been part of the sea, but time and man had closed it off and now the ice was smooth and even from the winds, and Viktor’s blades were sharp. He carved a path out of glass with the same amount of diligence and patience it took to carefully etch the glass faces for the watches at Yakov’s watchmaking shop. The wind bit at his cheeks and he pulled his muffler closer. The manmade lake wouldn’t thaw until summer and then it would only be a short while before it was frozen solid again.

He practiced a few leaps. Yakov’s wife, Lilia, often chided him for taking such daring risks.

“You’ll break your leg and then no one will want you! No wife wants to care for a lame husband!”

She always hid her scars from view. She had been a prima ballerina once. After a few glasses of sherry, she told anyone who would listen, that during closing night with the company, she strayed too close to the flames that lit the stage. Her skirts caught fire. And there she gave the performance of her life, lit aflame like a phoenix. Anyone who actually knew her, knew that the scars were from her ex-husband. He had died, facedown in a puddle after a night of heavy drink and only his mother mourned him.

Besides Viktor didn’t think he was likely to get a wife. Not anytime soon.

Makkachin paced the shore. He always became nervous when his master went out on the ice, but hated the feel of the slippery ice under his claws. He whined and Viktor consoled him with a few words.

Another leap.

It felt good to be out here even in the chill. He paused and let the wind toss through his hair. Sometimes it sang to him, a soft whistle against his ear. Viktor closed his eyes and listened to the quiet music. He heard a whimper and his eyes shot open. Looking to shore, Makkachin was busy sniffing along looking for a mink, oblivious to the noise. Viktor squinted and saw something at the edge of the ice. When he skated, he never traveled that far, not onto the thin ice. He moved closer, testing the ice with the pick of his skates. There was something scarlet on the ice and Viktor panicked, thinking perhaps it was a child wearing a bright red scarf, but as the whirling snow cleared, he could see it better.

A seal.

He blinked. How did a seal get so far inland? It must have come from the sea. Why it stayed at the lake was beyond him. He approached it carefully. At first he could not figure out why it had not fled yet and then he saw the nets wrapped around its body, digging deep into flesh and bleeding out onto the ice.

“Hello beauty,” he said.

Its large eyes were black and watery, like a pretty doll in a window. Its whiskers flexed and nostrils flared as it sniffed the air.

“You’re quite a lovely boy, aren’t you?” Viktor said soothingly, sitting a few feet away and unlacing his skates.

His wool socks stuck to the ice as he crawled forward toward the beast.

“Looks like you’re all tangled up. That looks painful, want me to help?” Viktor asked. “Such a lovely coat you have—“

The seal bared its teeth and Viktor fell back in surprise, landing on his rump.

“It’s okay, I’m just—“

The seal struck the ice and growled at Viktor.

“I just want to help you, pretty boy. It’s okay, it’s alright.”

The seal watched him approach with wary eyes and Viktor started at its feet, quickly undoing a knot.

“There we go my prince, almost done,” Viktor said. He wasn’t sure why he sounded like his mother when he spoke now, but it appeared to have the desired effect.

“One more my darling,” he encouraged. This knot was harder and tight and Viktor’s fingers were too frozen to be of much use.

He slipped a pocket knife out of his coat and the seal began barking like crazy. Makkachin heard the ruckus from the shore and added his voice to it as well. The dog attempted to run out onto the ice but his claws slipped and he scrambled back to shore.

“It’s okay my small one, it’s alright my love,” Viktor soothed as he sawed at the rope. “Almost done!”

The rope came free and the seal slapped Viktor across the face and scooted away toward the edge of the ice and dived in before Viktor could draw breath. He put a hand to his face and rubbed at the wet stinging feeling there.

“Bye!” he said, giving a little half wave to the rippling water.

<*>

Yakov said there had been all sorts of seals lining the bank when he was younger, before they closed off the lake. People would chase them off with sticks. They were loud and obnoxious and people were glad when they closed off the lake.

Viktor couldn’t see how something so beautiful wouldn’t be missed. Those inky black eyes, watering in pain, looking up at him as if somehow _seeing_ him. Not just his figure but seeing _into_ him. Recognizing one soul in another.

He thought of that when he laced his skates. He couldn’t do any fast turns, because he never wanted to turn his back to the horizon. Viktor skated as close to the edge of the thin ice as he’d allow, but each time he snuck out a bit more, daring himself.

Suddenly Makkachin began barking on shore and Viktor turned around to see a man on shore stealing his boots.

“Why you—hey!” Viktor shouted and began skating aggressively toward him.

The man froze and then ran across the ice, towards Georgi’s ice fishing hut. Viktor gave chase, skidding into a sharp turn. The man was uneven on the ice and Viktor was gaining on him, but then he ducked inside the hut.

“Come out of there thief!” Viktor said banging his hand on the door.

He took off one skate hurriedly and held it in his hands like an axe. In one motion he wrenched open the tiny door.

There was no one inside. And on Georgi’s wobbly stool, next to the hole he’d cut in the ice, sat his boots in pristine form.

“Huh…” Viktor said, inspecting them.

He looked out at the pure white landscape. No sign of his stranger. He walked around the hut. Not hiding there either. He looked back in the hut and into the hole in the ice. It was dark, only a few paltry rays of sunlight poking through the slats of cheap wood. He knelt down and put his face next to the hole. He had this feeling, this uncomfortable sensation in his gut that someone on the other side of that ice was watching him. He picked up his boots and sat on the bench, not even bothering to tie the laces fully. As he made to close the door, he heard a soft ripple in the water and he could have sworn that there, in the darkness, there was a pair of eyes.

<*>

“You’re just trying to scare me,” Yuri said, rolling his eyes. “There’s nothing out there. And you didn’t see a seal either!”

“If you don’t believe me then why did you follow me out here?” Viktor teased.

“To keep you from slacking off!” Yuri challenged.

And yet he had his ice skates in his hands.

“Besides we shouldn’t be out here on the Sabbath,” Yuri said and there was a little note of anxiety as he chewed his lip. Despite Yuri’s appeared disdain for authority, he cared deeply about what his grandfather thought and would hate to disappoint him.

“Now is the best time because it’s not nearly as crowded,” Viktor said, holding out his hand.

The younger man slapped it away and dashed out onto the ice. Viktor followed him and gave him a tiny nudge. Yuri caught him around the middle and attempted to knock him over. They continued their wrestling play until they were both panting and pink cheeked.

“It feels so wide out here,” Yuri said, opening his arms to the heavens. “It’s like prayer, really.”

Viktor nodded. Though he was now a man, Viktor could never think of Yuri as anything more than a child. Despite his desire to appear tough, he still played with Viktor like how he did when he was younger. Viktor never wanted to take that away from him. The younger man was unusually waspish lately, following Otabek’s leave of absence. Viktor had liked the taciturn man from Kazakhstan but the local police did not and accused him of organizing resistance. Men with guns stood outside his boarding house to drag him from his bed, but Beka had fled the night before. Since then Yuri looked angry and tired beyond his fifteen years.

“We should get back before they know we’ve left,” Viktor said. “It’s already been over an hour.”

Yuri nodded and they met Makkachin at the bank, slipping off their skates and into their boots.

“Ow!” Viktor yelped as his foot touched something hard inside the boot.

“What?” Yuri asked.

Viktor upended his boot into his palm. Expecting a pebble, he was surprised when a large, round and very shiny pearl fell into his hands. He stared at it.

“…Yuri…did you?”

Yuri shook his head, also in awe.

“Tell no one about this,” Viktor said, wrapping it in his kerchief and slipping it in his coat pocket.

Yuri nodded like a dutiful soldier and pursed his lips into a thin line.

<*>

“You mustn’t tell anyone about this, Viktor,” said Yakov, his fingers laced together and resting against his lips. “And you didn’t steal it?”

“Of course not!” Viktor protested.

True he wasn’t the best with money and he did always prefer more stylish things outside of his work, but stealing?

Yakov’s face was hard to read but his wife was not.

“This is how it starts. They will plant something on you and then say you stole it!” Lilia sniffed and wrung her bony hands. “Then they will have cause to search and ransack all the businesses here. They don’t want us here. We should leave, Yakov, like Otabek.”

“This is my business and we’re not leaving,” Yakov said in a low growl and that was the end of it. “Hide this well Viktor.”

“Throw it in the water!” Lilia protested.

“Hide it,” Yakov repeated.

“Do you think it was the man you saw?” Yuri asked, a heavy frown etched on his young face.

“What? He goes from trying to steal my boots to leaving me gifts? I doubt it.”

<*>

This time Viktor made a great show of leaving his boots by the edge of the lake. He skated without another thought, enjoying the serenity of the still lake. When Makkachin started barking, he turned around quickly. He expected to see the man by his boots on land, and jumped when he saw the man was standing right behind him.

“H-hello!” Viktor said, greeting him merrily.

The man blinked back in response.

Viktor’s eyes swept over his clothes. They were very odd indeed. A woman’s housecoat, an old man’s tie, a shawl, a muffler, an ill-fitting pair of pants and shirt and two different shoes. Well no wonder he had been so keen to steal Viktor’s.

“I’m Viktor, who are you?” he asked pleasantly enough.

The man squinted up at him. It was then that Viktor first noticed he was wet.

“You must be freezing!” he said, grabbing the man’s hands and rubbing them to stave off frostbite. “Here! We must get you home!”

He pulled on the man’s wrist and despite his nonverbal protests, marched him home and into a bath.

“Viktor are you bringing home strays again?” Lilia complained. “First this mangy dog and now a man?”

She tutted as Viktor scrubbed at his new friend’s back, trying to get some pink back into his skin. The stranger marveled at the hot water, looking at his hands underwater.

“There! All clean!” Viktor said toweling his hair. “Are you still cold? Here!”

He wrapped him up in a blanket and then searched for his own clothes.

“They’ll be a little too tight in the waist and too long, but I think they’ll fit you! Now…what should I call you?”

“Y-yuri,” the stranger attempted as if he’d never spoken it before.

“Another Yuri! What are the odds!” Viktor said, rubbing the towel over.

“Yoori,” the stranger repeated, still practicing the words.

Yuuri only blinked in response. Viktor dried his hair and then wiped at a droplet on Yuuri’s cheek. Two large pairs of black eyes blinked up at him. They were so wide and expressive, but dark and Viktor realized he was getting lost in them.

“All dry,” he said quietly.

“I’m not feeding him!” Lilia snapped.

<*>

“At least he has an appetite,” Yakov grunted an hour later watching Yuuri lick his bowl clean.

Viktor couldn’t stop watching him, even as Yuuri carefully sucked on each of his fingers like they were chicken bones.

“It’s like watching pigs in a sty eat,” Yuri said with a curled lip.

“I don’t like strangers in our home, Viktor,” Lilia complained in her strident voice.

“The good book says to feed those in need, Lilia,” Yakov soothed her and she wrung her bony fingers again.

Yuuri finished and then sniffed along the table looking for another serving. When none came, he looked at Viktor expectantly. Viktor could only beam.

“Zayde made piroshky,” Yuri suggested.

Three piroshky later, the new Yuuri rubbed his full belly happily. He began to nod off at the table and when Viktor put a hand on him, he started, not accustomed to touch.

“Yuuri, where are you from?” Yakov asked.

Yuuri squinted at him from across the table.

“His eyesight isn’t so good,” Viktor explained quickly, so Yakov wouldn’t think Yuuri was giving him the evil eye.

“Yes, but where is he from?”

At that moment the clocks chose to chime, ringing out merrily with their song. Yuuri clapped his hands over his ears and looked around wildly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s almost done. Here, have another piroshky.”

Yuuri beamed and Viktor watched him eat with his chin in his hands and his eyes sparkling. Yuri looked at Yakov and pulled a face.

<*>

“I’m afraid we don’t have another bed and it gets cold here, so you’ll have to share with me,” Viktor said, grabbing an extra blanket.

Yuuri had his ear against one of the clocks, listening to the sound reverberating inside.

“Yes, it’s very entertaining, but here, to bed!” Viktor summoned him.

Yuuri crawled in bed and then immediately put his head on Viktor’s chest, tapping his finger in time to the beat. He pointed at the clock and then placed a hand over Viktor’s chest. Viktor’s heart began to beat wildly and his stomach churned and he couldn’t quite figure out why. Yuuri lifted his head and lay down on his pillow facing Viktor. Viktor rested his head and didn’t dare take his eyes off of Yuuri, but sleep won over and soon he drifted off dreaming of black water under the ice.

In the morning he was gone. Viktor’s borrowed clothes were left delicately placed on the chair, but his place beside Viktor was empty. Viktor cried into Makkachin’s fur that night after searching fruitlessly for the stranger.

<*>

Yuuri showed up the night of a new moon in wet clothes and a hungry expression over a fortnight later. He bathed and fed and slept in Viktor’s bed. But in the morning he was gone.

“He’s a tramp who is using you for a good meal and warm bed,” Yuri spat in the morning.

“Then I’m glad we are able to give him that if only for a night.”

“He probably does this to every house in town,” Yuri sneered. “Walks up looking sad and cold and they give him food out of pity.”

Viktor smiled at him with the same vapid smile he always wore when he couldn’t match the emotion behind it, “You’re probably right.”

Yuri snorted and kicked at his chair.

<*>

The third time Yuuri came to Viktor’s home, Viktor felt the ache in his heart already. The pain that knowing this brief happiness would soon be over. Yuuri didn’t just come for the food, he knew that. The man listened raptly every time Yakov or Yuri spoke. He played chess with Yakov (although he wasn’t very good) He danced with Lilia to an old record, he chased the cats outside with Yuri and even caught a large tom once (he didn’t know what to do with it when he caught it and stood there frozen in shock, earning him a scrape for his trouble). But then there were other things he did, that the others didn’t see. He traced the outline of Viktor’s lips with his thumb as they lay in bed together. Yuuri liked being around them. And he slowly came to enjoy being embraced by Viktor.

Yuuri was busy smoothing out Viktor’s face and feeling his soft hair. He loved to trace the whorl at the top of his head where Viktor feared it was thinning. Viktor could feel a lump starting in his throat.

“Good night, Yuuri,” Viktor said, kissing his fingers.

“Good. Night. Vik-tor,” Yuuri said carefully and then beamed.

Viktor closed his eyes and pretended to sleep and waited. When he felt Yuuri move, he stayed still, regulating his breathing to keep it even. Yuuri patted Makkachin on the head and then slipped down the stairs. Viktor followed after him, sneaking quietly down and tugged on his boots that he’d placed carefully at the back door.

Yuuri walked to the ice and out to Georgi’s fishing hut. He opened the door and disappeared.

<*>

“Get off me! You freak!” Yuri shoved the other Yuuri aside as Yuuri, now a large fan of hugs, attempted to wrangle the smaller man in his arms.

“Yuri!” Yuuri said, catching him at last.

“Viktor! Your friend is strange!” Yuri struggled but then relented.

“Yuuri, come here, I have a gift for you,” Viktor said, stepping behind him and slipping a pair of glass frames on his nose. “I carved them for you—“

“Using my husband’s supplies,” Lilia said in displeasure.

“Using cast offs,” Viktor corrected. “Is it better?”

Yuuri blinked, looking around the room.

“Yes! Yes Viktor!” he said, throwing his arms around Viktor’s neck.

“I hope you enjoy them,” he said brushing a thumb against Yuuri’s cheek. And then in surprise, “Ah! Is that the time? I forgot I have to rush to deliver—I’ll be right back!”

He slipped out the door with a package tucked under his arm. But instead of delivering the pocketwatch, he went out to the lake. Opening the ice hut, he looked around frantically. Why did Yuuri always come here? What was he looking for?

In the dark light he squinted, holding a lamp, until he’d found what he was looking for. Without a second thought, he tucked it into his coat and when he returned home, stashed it underneath all the photos of his parents next to the pearl and his grandmother’s gold betrothal ring with the Temple of Solomon.

Yuuri left that night. But when they opened the shop in the morning he was standing outside, looking lost and confused.

“Yuuri! You’re back!” Viktor welcomed him. “I’m so glad.”

That night he stayed.

<*>

It was fun to have Yuuri around. It seemed he had finally found his home at last. At night he laughed softly against Viktor’s lips and during the day Yakov seemed intent on teaching him a trade. He even won Lilia and Yuri over by baking them a special treat.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Viktor said, lying on his pillow. He brushed his thumb over Yuuri’s lips. Yuuri took his hand and kissed the inside of his wrist.

The first month was bliss. Yuuri and Viktor shared the same bathwater and when they were clean and naked under covers, Yuuri ran his hands over and over all of Viktor’s body. Viktor ached to kiss him, especially when Yuuri tucked his head into the crook of Viktor’s neck.

But then, Viktor started to see the happiness in Yuuri’s eyes fade. The way he looked out at the water or when he heard a gull call. He was growing thinner too. His appetite fading. Lilia kept putting large plates of his favorite food in front of him, but he would not eat. At night he no longer slept in bed with Viktor, but sat at the window.

“He is not well,” Yakov told Viktor.

“Want to chase cats?” Yuri asked, kicking Yuuri’s chair.

Yuuri shook his head.

When the moon was full and streaming in the window, Viktor watched Yuuri’s silhouette there.

“Come to bed,” he said, rising and holding out his hand.

“Viktor. I…miss home,” he said forlornly.

“I can be your home,” Viktor said, holding his cheek, but Yuuri turned away and went back to the window.

<*>

“What is this?” Lilia asked, grabbing Viktor’s arm. “I went to clean and I found _this_ in your chest, what is it?”

“I found it.”

“Where you found the pearl?” she accused, digging her nails into his arm. “Vitya, please!”

Viktor froze as Yuuri stopped in the hallway. His eyes darted from the fur coat in Lilia’s arms to Viktor’s face. Viktor felt his heart sink.

She insisted Yakov bring the rabbi that night.

“I was cleaning and I found this,” she said, placing it in front of Yuri’s grandfather. “Vitya says he found it.”

“I did find it.”

Yuri’s grandfather, Nicolai, smoothed his hand over the fur coat. It was a luxurious item, soft and warm and beautifully tailored.

“And there was more.”

“A pearl. I found it in my boot,” Viktor said, hands folding under the table.

“’Wisdom is worth more than any pearl,’” the older man said, crossing his arms. “Viktor you should not have these things.”

“I know, but I don’t know what to do with them. I’m not trying to sell them.”

“Where did you find this?” he asked.

“…In Georgi’s fishing hut.”

“And you didn’t think to ask Georgi if it belonged to him?”

“What? No! I know it doesn’t and if I asked him he would try and claim it was his and then give it as a gift to Anya.”

There was a communal groan at that.

“What should we do?” Yakov asked when silence settled.

“You must put it back where you found it, Viktor. Tonight.” Nicolai’s eyes traveled from Viktor to Yuuri who sat at the window again.

As Yuri helped his grandfather put on his coat, he paused and put a large hand on Viktor’s shoulder.

“That man,” he said, indicating Yuuri. “He is not part of our world. He is not one of us. Please Vitya. You must let him go.”

Yuri watched from shore, arms crossed over this thin chest, as Viktor left the coat inside the fishing hut, carefully placing the pearl on top.

<*>

That night, Viktor lay with his back to Yuuri in the dark. He felt Yuuri shift behind him. A hand slipped around his waist and Yuuri kissed the place behind Viktor’s ear. Viktor rolled over to look at him. He was so beautiful. Dark hair and eyes. Viktor dragged his thumb down Yuuri’s lips, just barely pulling them apart. Yuuri took his hand and kissed him, soft lips and sweet breath against Viktor’s own.

Viktor hadn’t been expecting that, but it was something that he had ached and longed for and imagined in so many ways that when it finally did happen, he felt his body soaring. He kissed him back fully, bringing Yuuri’s mouth down to his own, threading his fingers in that downy soft hair. Yuuri’s hands were already slipping up his night shirt and Viktor sat up so he could remove it.

“Vitya,” Yuuri said in the dark.

Yuuri was warm when his belly slid to touch Viktor’s own. It felt as if two planets were colliding and Viktor was already lost in Yuuri’s touch. His sweet Yuuri, his gentle Yuuri, his beautiful Yuuri. He held Yuuri’s head to his breast as he sucked on a nipple and when Yuuri kissed his thighs he couldn’t help it, he wept.

At the sound of tears, Yuuri sat up to look at him.

“I love you, Yuuri,” Viktor said as the tears fell freely.

“Vitya,” Yuuri whispered again. “I love Vitya.”

He dipped his head as their lips met. He placed a knee between Viktor’s thighs, rubbing himself on Viktor’s knee. It was a long and slow grind, each of them pushing against the other and Viktor didn’t want to let go, he couldn’t let go. He tried to close his eyes and allow himself to get lost in a fantasy he had waited months, years, possibly all his life to come true. But all that happened was sadness.

“Please Yuuri. Stay close to me. Be with me. Yuuri,” he begged, even as he arched his back in desire.

Yuuri closed his hand around him and stroked. Viktor fumbled around, fingers tangled in the blankets before he did the same. Yuuri calmly removed his hand and pinned it above him, so intent on giving Viktor everything, giving him all of his pleasure.

“Vitya, my Vitya, I could watch you skate for hours. My love, my sweet,” Yuuri whispered in his ear, bringing his thumb over Viktor’s head.

Viktor couldn’t help it. He relinquished everything to Yuuri and when he came he arched and fell back exhausted. Yuuri lay on him, riding through his own pleasure. And when he finished, he looked satisfied and pleased with himself. He held Viktor until he fell asleep. And Viktor allowed himself to sleep, hoping and begging that when he woke Yuuri would still be there.

He wasn’t. And the coat was gone. The pearl he found on the table along with the glasses Viktor had made for him.

<*>

Viktor waited. Every time he heard footsteps on the door, he would open it. But it was never Yuuri.

“You didn’t see me get this sad when Beka left,” Yuri said, his own eyes bright, as Viktor looking out the window. “You’re just being pathetic.”

That night someone threw a brick in the window.

“Maybe it’s better your Yuuri left, Vitya,” Georgi consoled. “He wouldn’t have to deal with these things. I’ve been thinking of leaving too. Anya is gone and my heart with her.”

Viktor went out for drinks and Yuri tagged along with him.

“I don’t trust you to not get too drunk,” Yuri said, arms crossed over his chest.

“Vitya!” Chris greeted. Though he was gentile, Viktor had been friends with him since childhood. He pulled him into a large embrace and whispered, “Don’t go home tonight,” before releasing him and playing it off as a drunk act.

“What about Yakov?” Yuri asked, grabbing Viktor’s coat.

“They’re with Crispino working on an order. I’m getting a drink.”

“Well I’m going home, I’m not going to sit by and watch those—“

“Sit,” Viktor ordered in a voice that was harsher than he meant. Then in a softer voice, “And have a drink.”

Viktor and Yuri’s eyes never left the door. It was surprisingly empty in there that night. Most of the regulars not sitting with them. Yuri didn’t drink, he simply held onto his cup, his mouth and body tense.

“Vitya! Yuri!” shouted Georgi, running through the door. He saw Viktor and Yuri and his face relaxed.

They had broken the face of every clock. Every pane of glass and mirror in the shop had been shattered beyond repair.

“Cossacks,” Yuri spit into the ground. “I don’t understand why we don’t fight them! I don’t understand why we let this happen! Beka would have fought—“

“Beka is dead!” Viktor rounded on him. “And you could have been dead too if you had been here tonight!”

“He is not dead!” Yuri shoved him.

“You haven’t gotten a letter in months. He’s gone. He didn’t make it on the train,” Viktor said, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

“You don’t know that! You’re just bitter because Yuuri left you! But Beka didn’t leave me, he was forced to go!” Yuri’s voice cracked. “He’s alive!”

Viktor’s heart broke. “Ah Yuratchka, I’m sorry.”

“He’s alive,” Yuri gasped in a strangled voice, simultaneously trying to push Viktor away and holding his coat close.

“I hope so,” Viktor held him. “I hope so.”

“We have nothing,” Lilia said. “I was once a famous dancer in Moscow and now this. Nothing.”

“We’re alive. And that’s what matters,” Yakov told her sternly. “Vitya, Yuratchka.”

He embraced them both and they stood there as the wind whistled through the howling teeth of the broken windows.

<*>

Yuri’s grandfather didn’t make it into spring. A flu swept around and both grandson and grandfather came down with it. Yuri’s lungs were weakened but he recovered enough to arrange the burial the next day. The ground was still stiff.

Yakov boarded up the shop. He and Lilia made plans to travel to meet her sister.

“I got a letter,” Yuri said quietly as Viktor watched Yakov and Lilia debate over which of their items were important enough to take with them. “From Beka. He’s in Siberia.”

“That’s good. He’s alive,” Viktor nodded.

“I’m leaving. Don’t tell Yakov, he’ll only worry.”

Viktor understood. He rummaged through his chest and brought down the pearl, placing it in Yuri’s hands and closing his fingers around it.

“Viktor, leave with me.”

“I can’t. I have to stay here in case Yuuri comes back.”

Yuri’s green eyes glinted with many things to say, but he never did.

“I have to, Yuri.”

<*>

“Come with us, Viktor,” Yakov insisted. They had fought many a time over it with always the same outcome. “There is nothing for you here.”

“I have to wait for Yuuri.”

“He is gone, Vitya. Come with us. We’re like family. Don’t let this be it, like with Yuri.”

Yuri had snuck off in the night, boarded a train to nowhere and left the town behind. Their neighborhood was mostly empty. All the storefronts gone and the windows broken. Only families that worked in the gentile factories remained. Most would leave come spring.

“In the summer. Write me where you are and I’ll come to you.”

“Don’t be foolish, Viktor!” Yakov said, but Viktor waved him away.

They came at night again, like they always do. Too much drink and they would get riled up with their own boasting. This time Chris couldn’t warn him. Viktor woke to smoke and the broken clock faces began chiming. Coughing, he crawled on the floor past his skates, past the chest full of memories of his parents, past the rocking chair where he and Yuri had once listened to his grandfather tell stories. Men with guns and with torches lit up the only home Viktor had ever known. They lit up the entire block.

“C’mon Makkachin!” he begged dragging the dog out from under the house. Someone set off their gun and the dog started and ran away into the thick of the smoke. Viktor couldn’t see him. He was alone.

He ran to the only place he could think of where he felt safe. The ice.

“There’s one!” someone shouted and then they were on horses racing towards him. He ran out to Georgi’s ice fishing hut. Georgi’s family had long since left. He closed the door, gasping for breath and coughing up smoke. He leaned on the chair for support as he hacked into a kerchief and curled his fingers around the soft fur there. A coat. It was cold and he hadn’t had time to grab his own. He slipped it one. Warm and fur, it fit him perfectly, as if made for him. He hugged it close.

He left the hut and saw that all of the men had lined up on shore. They were waiting, but not for long. Soon they would come after him. A few of the men with guns, slid down the bank aiming their rifles at him. The weather was warmer as they neared spring and the ice unstable. Viktor backed up further like a condemned man against the firing block. The fire from the houses lit up the night sky and he could taste the smoke in his mouth. And he was all alone, facing down men who wanted to beat him or kill him.

He felt the ice crack beneath his feet and gave in. One more step and he’d belong to that inky blackness. He put his arms around his chest and fell down, crashing through the ice into the frigid water. The cold stole all breath from his lungs and the heavy coat dragged him down further and further. He opened his eyes for one last moment and smiled.

<*>

“There’s no one here,” Yuri said after a few moments. “They’ve all gone.”

“I’m sorry, Yuri,” Otabek said, putting his hand on Yuri’s shoulder.

The watchmaking shop was a blackened carapace, an empty shell of what it had been to Yuri. He felt he should be more upset, but he was only tired. He felt so much older in just those few months.

They walked to the lake. It was summer and the water twinkled pleasantly on the surface. A dog raced along the edge of the water.

“Makkachin!” Yuri exclaimed running for him.

The dog was dirtier and thinner than Viktor had ever kept him, but he didn’t appear malnourished.

“I missed you boy,” Yuri said, wrapping his arms around the dog’s neck as Makkachin whined and licked his face.

“Excuse me!” he hailed a woman walking by on the road. “Do you—oh Baba—I mean Mila.”

 “Yuri!” she exclaimed and then to his surprise embraced him. “Yakov and Lilia have gone to her sister’s, they write me often.”

“You’re still here,” he pointed out.

“I married,” she said and Yuri didn’t pry.

“Do you know where his master is?” Yuri indicated the dog. “I’m looking for him.”

A dark shadow passed over her face. “They murdered the man who used to live at the watch shop. They drove him out onto the ice and he fell in. I’m sorry, Yuratchka.”

Yuri nodded, eyes stinging, and thanked her.

“I’m sorry,” Beka said again, putting his hand on Yuri’s back.

“I’m not,” he said, rubbing at his nose. “He was an idiot. I told him to leave, but he wouldn’t.”

He sat out on the embankment of the lake. “I was coming to give this back to you, Vitya,” Yuri said, holding the pearl in his hand. “Thought maybe you could give it to Yuuri if you ever found him. But now if I get rid of it, that’s the last of you.”

And the last of this place.

He flung it into the water and marched up the hill back to Otabek. “Let’s leave. There’s nothing here.”

He turned back to give it one last look and that’s when he saw him. Viktor. Standing at the edge of the water and waving, wearing that same smile he always had on. And Yuuri was with him.

Yuri waved, just once, and then they were gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I sortof imagined Otabek as a revolutionary, who would spark Yuri's interest. The ending is purposefully ambiguous, so tell me what you think happened! I really loved writing Yuuri here as gentle but otherworldly. 
> 
> If you liked this please check out my other viktuuri fic [Bells](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8598661)!
> 
> And please leave kudos or comments! Or check out my tumblr [perksofbeingawaifu](http://perksofbeingawaifu.tumblr.com/) for more smaller viktuuri fics!


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